This makes a bit more than 4 litres (or a gallon.)
Special equipment: scale, cheesecloth, candy thermometer

To blanch almonds (thanks Paul!): Purchase whole raw almond (and optionally apricot) kernels. Place in a saucepan and cover with water. Quickly bring to a boil over high heat. Remove from heat and rinse with cold water. Put on some good music, and rub the skins off each almond. It took me about the length of Nick Cave’s excellent new CD “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!” to remove the skins from 856 grams of almonds.

In regards Almond and Apricot Kernels, I had a bit over 2 pounds of Almonds and 2 ounces of Apricot kernels to start with. They were mixed together to blanch, so I’m not exactly sure how much of each ended up in the final mix.

Wash and sanitize the bottles you will be using to store your syrup. I don’t have a dish washer, so I wash them, rinse them, then place them in a cold oven. Turn the temperature to 200 degrees. When it reaches 200, I leave them in for 15 minutes. Kind of like an autoclave.

Weigh the strained liquid.

For every 500 grams of strained liquid, add 700 grams of sugar. My liquid weighed 2774 grams, so I added around 3500 grams of sugar.

Put the pot over low heat, and heat to dissolve sugar. Interestingly, Francois Xavier recommends not to boil it, as this may turn your orgeat into caramel. I brought it to the recommended 40 Centigrade and kept it there for about 15 minutes, stirring to dissolve the sugar.

Leave the orgeat to cool. Then add the brandy, orange flower water, and almond extract.

Pour into the clean bottles.

Also, as Francis Xavier notes, “Real orgeat syrup will split after a few days in a thick, solid white layer of almond powder on top and syrup below. This is normal and happens with quality bought orgeat syrup such as the one I used to buy from Hédiard in Paris. All you need is insert a skewer in the bottle to break the top layer a bit, close and shake. This is really part of the fun in this product and a hallmark of quality orgeat syrup.”

Interestingly, perhaps because I am using florida crystals natural cane sugar, my orgeat came out even darker than Francois’.

Anyway, the best part about this recipe, is that you run almost no risk of over processing your almonds. With a food processor or a blender, it is very, very easy to start making almond butter, as I did last time. Almond fudge is cool, but it doesn’t really work for cocktails. Besides, unless you’re handicapped or suffering from carpal tunnel, there’s really no compelling reason to use a food processor for this small an amount of almonds.

This post comes just in time, my orgeat is almost finished! i made the FXCuisines version last time and like it but now i want to try this one and also Trader Tiki`s vanilla orgeat. I didn´t before notice this thing with the pajamas, it made me shuckle!

I saw in one of the comments, someone mentioning almond milk from whole foods? Have you ever try using this? I wonder if a 1:1 Almond Milk/Sugar with a bit of orange flower water would make a decent Orgeat without all of the processing and materials required above. Any thoughts?

I have not tried that yet, The Concierge. It might be worth a try, as long as there aren’t any additives in the almond milk. The main challenge might be getting the sugar concentration where it should be without raising the temperature of the almond milk too warm.

I am thinking blender to solve the sugar dissolving problem. I will have to experiment with this when I have a chance. I was at PDT in NY last week and saw that they use a lebanese brand (I think-definitely middle eastern) of almond syrup. However, from all of the top notch rum plus the Creole Shrubb that went in that Mai Tai- I am not sure that drink could have been made to taste bad no matter what kind of orgeat or almond syrup used.

I wonder if adding a few drops of Orange Flower Water to a bottle of good almond syrup is advisable if one is not making his own.

Great post. However I noticed that the recipe on FXcuisine doesn’t mention brandy or cognac whatsoever. I’m currently in the 12 hr waiting period, and trying to figure out if whether I should add brandy or not. Is it added for flavoring or as a preservative?